Ocean Wave, Canadian schooner that sank in storm, found off shore

Associated Press

Published 10:02 pm, Thursday, September 19, 2013

The battered wreck of a Canadian schooner that sank in Lake Ontario during a sudden squall more than a century ago has been found off the lake's central New York shore, a team of Rochester-area undersea explorers said Thursday.

The 81-foot Ocean Wave was hauling hemlock lumber and lath from Trenton, Ontario, to Oswego when it went down about 15 miles from the New York shore during a violent squall in November 1890. All five men aboard were lost, including the captain, Thomas Brokenshire, of Port Hope, Ontario, on the lake's northern shore.

The ship broke apart and sections floated around the lake's eastern end before eventually sinking in about 300 feet of water, Kennard said.

Kennard said one of Brokenshire's descendants told the explorers that an acquaintance of the captain later wrote that Brokenshire was making his final voyage before retiring.

The explorers said they first came across evidence of the wreck last year while using side-scan sonar. They returned to the site this summer to get video images. They said the Ocean Wave was the only known schooner to have capsized and then sunk in that area.

In July, the trio announced the discovery of a 52-foot schooner that sank during a storm in 1839. Kennard was part of the team that discovered the British warship HMS Ontario, the oldest shipwreck ever found in the Great Lakes. The Ontario sank in Lake Ontario in 1780.